Algeria nation profile
Algeria, a gateway between Africa and Europe, has been battered by violence over the previous half-century.
There are conflicting studies in regards to the dying toll throughout the struggle in opposition to France for independence within the Nineteen Fifties and early 60s. French historians estimate that as much as 400,000 Algerians had been killed, whereas the Algerian authorities says a couple of million folks died.
The nation later endured a brutal inside battle after when elections that Islamists appeared sure to win had been cancelled in 1992; a low-level Islamist insurgency nonetheless impacts Algeria.
The Sahara desert covers greater than four-fifths of the land. Algeria is the continent’s greatest nation, and is the world’s tenth largest.
Oil and fuel reserves had been found there within the Nineteen Fifties, however most Algerians reside alongside the northern coast.
President: Abdelmadjid Tebboune
Abdelmadjid Tebboune gained the December 2019 presidential election from a area candidates all related to the period of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the long-serving head of state pressured out of workplace by mass protests in April.
The opposition boycotted the election, demanding a clear sweep of the military-dominated elite and a sustained marketing campaign in opposition to corruption.
Mr Tebboune has pledged to hold out the mandatory reforms, however the former civil servant faces a severe problem in successful over public belief.
Algeria has a energetic non-public press however the state broadcaster avoids criticism of the federal government.
Current laws permits a number of privately-owned TV stations to function from Algerian soil, however none of them are opposition-leaning.
Some key dates in Algeria’s historical past:
1830 – France seizes Algiers, ending Algeria’s three centuries as an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire.
1939-1945 – The Collapse of France and the Anglo-American occupation of North Africa throughout Second World Warfare encourages hopes for independence.
1945 – Professional-independence demonstrations in Setif. 1000’s are killed in suppression of ensuing unrest.
1954-1962 – Algerian Warfare of Independence.
1962 – Independence.
1976 – Algerian, Moroccan armies conflict over Western Sahara.
1989 – New structure removes the one-party state and strikes nation away from socialism to western capitalism.
1991-1999 – Civil struggle pitting Islamists in opposition to the federal government.
1999 – Abdelaziz Bouteflika turns into president, introduces nationwide reconciliation coverage.
2019 April – President Bouteflika pronounces he’ll step down after road protests.
